Frontline Leadership

As I mentioned in my last article, project management has become a critical skill for efficiently and effectively aligning valuable resources to achieve an organization’s important operational, strategic and sales projects. In this article, I’d like to address something that all three of these categories of projects have in common. They are all...

Here’s a quick quiz: Are projects in your organization getting done on time? Within budget? Are the customers of these projects satisfied? Are your employees enthusiastic about their involvement in projects? Do you even know how many projects are currently underway within your organization? If you answered “no” to any of these questions,...

Can you answer yes to the following question? At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day? According to the author Tom Rath in the book "Strengths Finder 2.0," those who answered yes to this question are six times more likely to be engaged in their work and three times more likely to have a better quality of life in...

Say the phrase, “We need to hold people more accountable” to your team and most of them will likely have a negative reaction. Why? Because for many, the connotation of the word “accountability” was created by an unpleasant experience involving blame, coercion, criticism and more work. What we say we mean versus what they perceive is often...

Asking for permission to have a conflict conversation? Ned, I thought you were nuts when you suggested we get in a circle for our meetings, now I know you are. Again, no I am not nuts. The amygdala controls the fight or flight response of the brain. This response is automatic and does not distinguish between real and perceived threat. When you...

Providing difficult feedback to an employee is one of the most challenging tasks for a supervisor. Nobody likes having to tell someone that they are not doing a good job. And certainly nobody wants to hear it. Employee defensiveness, even complete denial of the situation, can often be a typical employee response. So how do we provide employees with...

"Applying one extra degree of temperature to water means the difference between something that is simply very hot and something that generates enough force to power a machine — a beautifully uncomplicated metaphor that ideally should feed our every endeavor — consistently pushing us to make the extra effort in every task, action, and effort we...

In my last article, I wrote about two of the common traps decision makers can fall into. In this article, I’d like to share two key questions that must be addressed when making a decision – who should make the decision and who should be in involved in the decision. The answer to the first question is pretty straightforward – generally it’s...

Gather in a circle? Ned, are you crazy? This is a workplace not some hand holding kumbaya love fest! No I am not crazy and you don’t have to be part of a kumbaya love fest to pull this off. The circle is the most prevalent geometric shape natural to nature. Everything you see has a circular shape to it; the moon, earth, sun, clouds, trees,...

Some very interesting people attended the leadership skills programs I’ve taught. One was Dan, a recently promoted supervisor who’d spent many years in the Navy. In the program, we talked about the value of having discussions with employees regarding work assignments, upcoming changes and decision making. It was critical, I explained, to listen...